The incident sent shockwaves across India with many describing the act as worse than the Dadri incident, where 52-year-old Mohammed Akhlaq was lynched to death because of the remour that he had stored and consumed beef inside his house.

On Sunday the senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi alleging alleged that people from the minority community were being targeted on one pretext or the other across the country.

Azad wrote: “It is unfortunate that our country has seen a sharp spurt in incidents of threats, intimidation, mob violence and vigilantism after the takeover of BJP government in Centre and that a majoritarian view of democracy is being propagated and promoted consciously and deliberately. This has serious implications for the survival of democracy, pluralism, social harmony and peace, besides growth and development of the country.”

On Friday two Muslim men herding eight buffaloes on their way to a local Friday market in BJP-ruled Jharkhand when they were mercilessly beaten up before being hanged to death from a tree by unknown assailants.

The incident took place on early hours of Friday at Balumath forests in Latehar district, 100km from Ranchi.